President Obama will act unilaterally on immigration Thursday night, a move that will spin Republicans into a frenzy as they access their options to stop the administration from halting the deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.

Many Republicans want to include language to block Obama's executive action in an upcoming spending bill. That could lead to a government shutdown, something Republican leaders swear up and down they are not going to do.

Yet, party leaders have failed to control the GOP Conference before. The good news for House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell is that even if Republicans head down the shutdown war path, it might not be the calamity for the party that Washington once made it out to be.